WASHINGTON – The Pentagon has charged six detainees at Guantanamo Bay with murder and war crimes in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks. Officials said Monday they’ll seek the death penalty in what would be the first capital trials under the terrorism-era military tribunal system.

Now, I say this recognizing that I may anger a lot of people, even some who generally oppose capital punishment. As if I care. The nation’s imperialist tendencies, brazen rejection of global warming “hype”, and employment of waterboarding and other torture measures have cost the once-gleaming City on the Hill much of its moral credibility in the world. Condemning these irrationally fundamentalist, hate-filled terrorists to life imprisonment (perhaps with some hard labor thrown in for good measure), rather than executing them, presents to the Bush Administration the perfect opportunity to regain respect from other nations. Hardly hold I, though, any optimistic thoughts on the matter.

A more important reason, I believe, exists in defense of not executing this cowards, men who made the plans, but left the kamikaze efforts to others more willing and, seemingly, pious. Militants Islamists seekmartyrdom! I dare say that such life-ending dedication to the cause as exhibit time and again by hijackers and suicide bombers encourages others to follow suit. Would it not, then, be more sensible of our leaders to deny Khalind Sheikh Mohammed (who, I wish to add, bears a distressingly striking resemblance to Ron Jeremy) and his compatriots the opportunity to die valiantly for the cause, instead allowing them to rot in maximum-security prisons, pressing license plates and dealing with rightly irate responses from people whose family dinners these incarcerated terrorists have interrupted with marketing calls?